W&M ScholarWorks
Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects
2013
Paradise Lost: A Vulnerability Analysis of Vernazza, Italy After the 2011 Natural Disaster
Huan Song College of William and Mary
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses
Recommended Citation Song, Huan, "Paradise Lost: A Vulnerability Analysis of Vernazza, Italy After the 2011 Natural Disaster" (2013). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 632. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/632
This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected].
PARADISE LOST: A VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS OF VERNAZZA, ITALY AFTER THE 2011 NATURAL DISASTER
A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF HONORS IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES AT THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY
WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
BY
HUAN SONG
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 4 DEDICATION ...... 5 ABSTRACT ...... 6 PROLOGUE ...... 7 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 11 2 BACKGROUND ...... 12 2.1 History of Vernazza ...... 11 2.2 Tourism in Italy ...... 13 2.3 Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre ...... 15 3 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 18 3.1 World Heritage inscription and implications ...... 18 3.2 Vulnerability framework ...... 20 3.2.1 Exposure ...... 22 3.2.2 Sensitivity ...... 23 3.2.3 Resilience ...... 28 4 METHODOLOGY ...... 30 4.1 Local residents data collection ...... 30 4.1.1 Primary interviews ...... 30 4.1.2 Secondary data collection ...... 33 4.2 Visitors data collection ...... 35 4.2.1 Establishing individual visitor profile ...... 35 4.2.2 Evaluating promotional materials ...... 39 4.2.3 Evaluating activities and attractions ...... 39 4.2.4 Evaluating the visit ...... 40 4.2 Sampling limitations ...... 41 5 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...... 43
5.1 Resident values ...... 43 5.2 Test for value congruency ...... 43 5.2.1 Value 1: safety of residents and tourists ...... 43 5.2.2 Value 2: agricultural heritage ...... 50
2
5.2.3 Value 2: tourist revenue ...... 50 5.2.4 Value 2: tourist participation ...... 56 6 CONCLUSION ...... 59
REFERENCES ...... 62
APPENDIX A VISITOR SURVEY ...... 64
APPENDIX B WORDLE VISUAL ...... 65
3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to take an opportunity to thank all the people without whom I would not have been able to complete my thesis.
My research would not have been possible without the support of the Vernazza community. I am very grateful to Michele Lilley, one of the founders of Save Vernazza ONLUS and her family who live in Vernazza. Michele not only took care of me during my stay in Vernazza, she also directed me to speak with some of the key stakeholders in the community. I was very grateful to have an opportunity to interview Daniele Moggia from the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, Catherina Ungar from Arbaspàa Tours and visit Lise Bertram from Cheo Wines. I’m also very thankful to Alessandro Villa who was born a Vernazzan and is now a faculty at the University of Milan and Cristiano Fornelli who shared with me his own research on Vernazza.
My research would also not be possible without the 172 tourists who took the time to fill out my survey while on vacation. I’ve been extremely lucky to have the support from Save Vernazza ONLUS, Per Vernazza Futura ONLUS, and Rebuild Monterosso to set up in the town square in order to conduct my interviews.
At William and Mary, I was very fortunate to receive financial support from the Charles Center through the Senior Honors Thesis Grant which allowed me to live in La Spezia for the month of July.1 I’m also grateful to my Airbnb host Paola Ruggieri who made my stay feel very safe and comfortable.
My thesis would not have been possible without the support of a few William and Mary faculty. I want to thank Professor Anita Angelone from the Department of Modern Languages who enthusiastically helped me with filling in the gaps in my research from an Italian perspective. My thesis advisor Professor Tonya Boone spent this past year guiding me, from my thesis proposal all the way to the finish. Her patience, support, and confidence in my work were monumental in shaping this project.
1 This project was partially funded through the William and Mary Honor’s Thesis Fellowship program.
4
DEDICATION
For Wang Guan Ren and Zhao Lian Zhi: disaster survivors, grandparents.
5
ABSTRACT
The mountainous part of the Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere was named as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 for its representation of harmonious interaction between people and nature. Presently, tourism has taken over as the main occupation of the Cinque Terre which hosts around 2.5 million visitors a year. On
October 25, 2011, an intense rainstorm swept through the region and inflicted serious damages to the towns of Monterosso al Mare and Vernazza. Rain, carrying rocks, soil, and grape plants flooded Vernazza and buried the town under more than 13 feet of mud and debris. Three residents of Vernazza died from over 100 landslides that day and the town of Vernazza suffered over 100 million Euros worth of damages. This study examines the differences in the value placed on the landscape by the local residents and the visitors of Cinque Terre, specifically the in town of Vernazza. Delegation of value from each of the two groups could have significant implications on the adaptive response to make the environmental and economic landscape of Vernazza more resilient to vulnerabilities from chronic hazards.
6
PROLOGUE “I no longer feel my feet but I run toward the piazza with the news that my father has been sucked away by the torrent, hoping that somehow someone had saved him. “ --Valentino Giannoni, Son of the owner of “Porto Dody Gelateria Artiginale” Pino Giannoni, who died during the flood on October 25, 2011 On the morning of October 25, 2011, fast moving “scirocco” clouds ominously painted across the sky. Winds picked up and rain quickly followed. The strong winds and heavy rain made walking down the streets of Vernazza difficult. Visitors to Vernazza ducked into the closest restaurants to stay dry. Tables and chairs outside the restaurants started to slide slowly downhill. Soon, residents witnessed rapidly rising water levels in the canal where only once before had they seen water rush to the canal’s full capacity.
Rain continued to poor down and the town lost electricity. Water level quickly rose inside stores along the main street. In a matter of minutes, the water level rose from a few centimeters to half a meter inside this shops and restaurants. Soon after, rocks and debris thundered down from the hilltops, carrying with them small trucks, trash bins, vans and vines. Whirlpools of water mixed with debris blocked the exit to many of these small establishments and travelers and townspeople were trapped inside. The town’s five hundred gallon propane tank was ripped off the hillside while persistently spewing gas.
Joanne, an American tourist from St. Louis recalls, “ Gas…same in Italian as
English…you could smell it everywhere…The gas smell is strong everywhere and people are really panicking-crying, yelling.” Water level in these small stores at this point reached the ceiling and some cantinas started to collapse. The owner of the popular Blue
Marlin bar broke the wall in the back of his restaurant to provide a safe escape for his customers up an abandoned set of stairs. Others sought refuge in the train station’s gift shop located at the entrance to the town on higher grounds. Visitors who were where
7 trapped inside waterfront restaurants evacuated to the Al Castello restaurant, where centuries before, Vernazzans defended themselves from pirate raids.
Around midafternoon, citizens and tourists were advised to gather in the City Hall because the situation was anticipated to escalade. The second and strongest wave of landslides crashed into Vernazza soon after the advisory and buried the town under more than 13 feet of mud and debris. Some visitors were unable to reach the City Hall but found protection instead in the homes of Vernazzans. An American couple from
Spokane, Washington who were trapped in their host family’s home later wrote,
By then the exterior hallway door had given way; the windows in the room beside us had broken open; we expected our room’s water level would soon be level with the screaming torrent outside. Several times the water receded, two or three feet, only to rush in again with increased force. We prayed together, talked about what our lives together had meant, and sent signals with our LED flashlight. It was pitch black, except for an ever-so-important floodlight, still shining intermittently from a building across the road. Some other visitors were hiking along the steep trails between the coastal villages of
Cinque Terre. One solo hiker from Canada was lost on the trail between Cornigia and
Vernazza. She later described that as she frantically ran towards Vernazza she pleaded,
“Please God, don’t let there be a mudslide. My family will never know where to look for me”.
Around midnight, the torrential storm was reduced to a steady rain and the search and rescue process began. With daylight, helicopters flew in with ropes to aid local men and Search Rescue technicians (SARs). Vernazza had neither electricity nor potable water. Trains and boats stopped operating and the hiking trails leading to and from
Vernazza were completely blocked.
8
By the second afternoon, the remaining tourists were evacuated south to the city of La
Spezia. The bodies of three residents of Vernazza were recovered weeks later on the
French coast. Over 100 landslides that day caused Vernazza to lose three of its residents and suffer over 100 million Euros worth of damages to public and private properties.
Residents watched hopelessly as their houses crumbled and cars swept in to the muddy sea. To exacerbate this catastrophe, some of the residents’ insurance policies did not over damages from natural disasters. Those fortunate enough to have houses on higher grounds opened them to displaced tourists. Senior members of the community reflected that the damages of the 2011 disaster surpassed what they had seen during World War II when Vernazza came under Nazi occupation. 2
2Stories by locals and visitors on October 25, 2011 are listed on Savevernazza.com
9
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
“But after a generation of neglect and abandonment, the land was washed by violent weather into the towns. It's like nature was speaking: There will be no tourism to harvest without proper stewardship of the land. The question that remains: Will the lesson be learned, remembered, and heeded?” -Rick Steves, American travel guide writer, My Report from the Cinque Terre3 Tourism can act as an effective catalyst for regional economic development. The growth of tourism in an area should be mutually beneficial to both the visitors of the area and the local residents (Calgaro & Lloyd 2008). Ideally, visitors gain new cultural experiences and enjoy relaxing holidays while locals invest visitor revenue into community development programs which raise their standard of living. The UNESCO
World Heritage brand furthermore serves as a seal of approval for many tourist destinations and validates the value of the cultural or natural landscapes.
Current heritage site studies have examined the negative effects that the inscription seems to have created at some destinations. A site in Ogimachi, Japan, for example, experienced a decrease in the level of conservation. Tourists to Ogimachi have also weakened the authentic feel of the community which led to backlash from neighboring none-heritage site communities (Jimura 2011). The 2011 disaster that devastated the communities of Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare in the UNESCO World
Heritage Site of Cinque Terre, Italy, demonstrates the need for extensive vulnerability analysis of places of “outstanding human value” to chronic hazards. The mismanagement of these hazards could have significant implications on future tourism development and even the continued existence of these heritage landscapes.
3 American guide book writer Rick Steves popularized the Cinque Terre with the American tourist market. Steves is heavily involved with the rebuild process in Vernazza and writes travel updates on his website www.ricksteves.com to keep visitors informed about new store openings and other progress.
10
This project first examines the theoretical framework of vulnerability analysis.
The Sustainability Vulnerability Framework purposed by Turner et al. (2003) suggests that an effective vulnerability plan must consider human-environment interactions through elements of exposure, sensitivity, and resilience. There have been very few studies that apply this framework specifically to tourist destinations and UNESCO World
Heritage Sites although researchers from Indonesia have started to investigate this topic.
The purpose of this study is to understand the interaction of the two components of the Vernazza site, visitors and residents, who are exposed to chronic hydrogeological hazards. Their interactions with each other and with the physical environment are manifested by what they value within the heritage landscape such as the physical beauty or economic potential. Divergent values placed on the landscape may generate actions or deliberate inaction that will affect the sensitivity of all components exposed to these hazards. The main research question of this study, therefore, inquires to what are the differences in the value placed on the heritage landscape by the residents and the visitors.
The duration of primary data collection ranged from July 1, 2012 through July 31,
2012. 173 visitors to Vernazza were surveyed and two in depth interviews were conducted with local residents. Five additional secondary sources were used to supplement these interviews. An exploratory qualitative analysis of statements by residents extrapolated four major resident values. A descriptive quantitative analysis of visitor surveys cross examined visitor values to resident values in order to determine if these values diverged.
11
CHAPTER TWO: BACKGROUND
“They were poor persons. They don’t have beautiful things. There are no Colloseo or the Sistine Chapel. It’s a simple church, simple houses. But the importance is the landscape that our grandfathers and great grand grandfathers have made.” –Daniele Moggia, Office of Communication, Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre 2.1 History of Vernazza
The Ligurians, who are the ancestors of the modern Cinque Terre residents, were considered the first and original inhabitants of Western Europe by the Greek poet Hesoid.
The term “Liguria” may be derived from the pre-indoeuropean word for a swampy place or “liga” where the Greeks (Liguse) and the Romans (Ligures) first encountered each other at the mouth of the Rodano River. There are many speculations about the origin of the name “Vernazza”. One hypothesis states that it derives from the name of a local wine produced called the Vernaccia made from raisins. This type of wine is still a specialty of the region but its name has since evolved to be the Sciaccetra. Another hypothesis speculates that the name “Vernazza” came from the freed slaves of an ancient Roman family, the “Gens Vulnetia”. These slaves founded the town of Vernazza around the year
1000 upon their emancipation (Associazione Culturale Cinque Terre 2009).
The five Cinque Terre towns as they are now, were constructed in the eleventh and twelfths centuries because early settlers were afraid that their settlements would be too vulnerable to pirate raids by the Saracens. The structures of the Cinque Terre towns include towers and fortified walls for protection and terraced hillsides for farming. The
Ligurian Sea flourished as a place for commerce after the Republics of Genoa and Pisa defeated the Arab Saracen fleets in the eleventh century (Associazione Culturale Cinque
Terre 2009). Agriculture, specifically the production of wine and olive oil, became the
12 key economic driver of this region. The strategic proximity of the Cinque Terre area to oceanic transportation further increased demand to export these agricultural products.
From the 1600s to the 1900s, Vernazza continued to expand and cultivate crops on its surrounding hillsides (Save Vernazza ONLUS 2012). After the unification of Italy in
1861, agriculture remained as the main productive sector with 60% of the Italian population working on farms (Malanima & Zamagni 2010). Vernazza’s demographics reflected this national trend.
During Cinque Terre’s peak production in the 1920s, residents of the five towns cultivated a total of 2000 hectares of crops in the surrounding hills. Today, residents only cultivate around 100 hectares. As a result of dramatic changes in the Italian economy, cities grew at the expense of the countryside and Italy experience rapid population growth and urbanization. The role of industry became more important after the turn of the century. Decline in agriculture occurred first in the northern Italian regions, including the region of Liguria (Malanima & Zamagni 2010). Parasitic disease outbreaks in the historic vineyards (phylloxera vastatrix, o Viteus vitifoliae) in combination with the bleak economic conditions pushed many Vernazzans to abandon their farms and immigrate to
America (Save Vernazza ONLUS 2012). The fall of agriculture was particularly rapid after World War II as an increase percentage of the population flowed to better-paid jobs in urban areas (Malanima & Zamagni 2010).
2.2 Tourism in Italy
As with many industrialized nations during this time, Italy was in the process of transitioning to a service based economy. However, this transition in recent decades took
13 a considerably longer time than other, wealthier nations such as Japan and France. While these nations undertook the service revolution during the 1950s and 1960s, Italy had not yet completed its first structural transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrial one (Malanima & Zamagni 2010, Battilani 2010 ). However, on a national level, the development of tourism played a very important role in the metamorphosis of the Italian economy. Tourism maintained the equilibrium of trade balance during critical years of Italy’s industrialization. On a local level, tourism has generated strong demand for intermediate goods. Residents of Vernazza opened some of the first restaurants and shops during this prosperous time (Malanima & Zamagni 2010, Battilani 2010,
Associazione Culturale Cinque Terre 2009 ).
The history of Italian tourism can be classified by the country of origin of major group of visitors over time. Visitors from the United Kingdom were the predominant group before the emergence of visitors from America during the first half of the 20th century. The early group of British tourists represented 17% of total Italian exports.
Tourism revenue was crucially invested in raw materials and machines for Italy’s industrialization. During the interwar years, Italy’s tourism failed to attract as much of the emerging American mass tourism market as did France. However, after WWII, more people could travel more safely. The average European family income increased and the establishment of paid holidays gave European families the leisure time to travel.
Innovations in transportation also reduced the duration and cost of travel for middle and working class families (Battilani 2010).
During the 1960s, tourism started to grow as an economic force. From the 1950s-
1960s, German and British tourists flocked to Italy to seek seaside holidays and Italy
14 overtook France in terms of tourist receipts. The Cinque Terre became a favorite summer destination for Swiss and German tourist during the 1970s (Battilani 2010). The recent tourist makeup is shifting towards the American and Asian market. As the tourism industry matured, the agricultural sector steadily declined. Residents of the Cinque Terre progressively abandoned their crops and the maintenance of dry stone wall terraces in favor of pursuing careers in the hospitality industry.
2.3 Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre
The mountainous part of the Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere was named as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 for its representation of
“harmonious interaction between people and nature”. Presently, tourism has taken over as the main occupation of the Cinque Terre which hosts around 2.5 million visitors a year.
The five villages of Riomaggiore, Corniglia, Manarola, Vernazza, and Monterosso Al
Mare together form the area known as the Cinque Terre. Riomaggiore and Manarola constitute the Comune di Riomaggiore. Corniglia and Vernazza form the Comune di
Vernazza, and Monterosso Al Mare is an autonomous Comune. Currently, there are about
5000 residents total in the five villages. The Comune di Vernazza has approximately 1000 residents with 600 in Vernazza, 300 in Corniglia, and 100 in the upper hills above
Vernazza. However, many of these original residents did not return after the disaster in
2011 (Povoledo 2012).
The Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre was created in 1999 in order to promote sustainability principles within the protected areas. According to the park’s official website, park oversees the compliance of business to environmental laws and regulations.
15
It maintains and Environmental Management System (EMS) and supports responsible tourism through the Environmental Quality Label (MQA) for hospitality establishments
(Cinque Terre National Park 2013). Gatti and Fornelli (2006) describe the park as a bridge between ecological values of the landscape and cultural value of the area’s inhabitants. The network of complicated and often conflicting relationships that coexists within the 4,300 acres of park area challenges the park’s ability to preserve the historic landscape.
The environment of the Cinque Terre is under the management of the park. The park encompasses 4,226 acres of land, the five villages of the Cinque Terre and all 5,000 residents. The park is responsible for the natural heritage as well as marine and land biodiversity within its protected area. Tourists to the Cinque Terre contribute directly to the park’s revenue by paying a fee to use Hiking Trail #2 that connects the five towns
(Cinque Terre National Park 2013). Since the park’s inception in 1994, it has rotated through many administrations due to misappropriation of funds. The new president of the park is working towards rectifying the park’s public image and engaging with visitors to make park services more valuable.
16
CHAPTER THREE: LITERATURE REVIEW
“Thus, we must make the effort to connect with these fields, which are sometimes at a remove from local interest, but which are absolutely essential for the maintenance of sites and the development of their peoples” –Alicia Castillo, Proceedings of the first international conference on best practices in World Heritage: Archeology 3.1 World Heritage inscription & implication
Countries, such as Italy, that sign the World Heritage Convention agree to develop methods to counteract the dangers that threaten its cultural or natural heritage sites. These methods include the identification, protection, conservation, presentation, and rehabilitation of all sites under its jurisdiction. The park was established in order to carry out these responsibilities in the Cinque Terre. Italy filed for the Cinque Terre area to be listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site during the 1990s. In 1997, UNESCO inscribed Cinque Terre into the World Heritage list for its:
Outstanding value, representing the harmonious interaction between people and nature to produce a landscape of exceptional scenic quality that illustrates a traditional way of life that has existed for a thousand years and continues to play an important socio-economic role in the life of the community.4 The main purpose of the World Heritage Convention is to ensure the survival of heritage sites that carry outstanding value. However, value is implicitly subjective.
Heritage is created by ascribing value to a landscape that can unite people through recreating a common past. It not only exists in the sphere of research such as in the fields of geology or biology, but also must reach to everyday lives of people who coexist with it and visitors who seek to learn from it. The current research on World Heritage Sites lacks a larger reflection on the role of economics and business, specifically the management of
4 The UNESCO webpage detail qualifications of each heritage sight for its inscription.
17 tourism development (Castillo 2012, Williems 2012). At sites like Vernazza where tourism generate livelihoods for the majority of its residents, the lack of extensive research on the interaction between the economic landscape and the heritage and environmental landscapes is particularly troubling.
The “World Heritage Site” inscription by UNESCO can bring tremendous economic potential to a landscape. Economic development also predictably shifts the focus of residents from membership in a historic, culturally based network, to one that’s defined by profit (Comer 2012). Residents’ values shift from an emphasis on culture to more emphasis on tourism revenue. With this economic potential also transmit the risk of over- exploitation and the degradation of the environment when visitation exceeds the capacity to manage them effectively.
Gatti and Fornelli (2006) examined in the relationship between residents, tourists, and the park. The park is viewed as a vehicle is to promote tourism and tourist activity. These activities create income and employment which in turn, contribute to the economic well- being of the local community. This study found that within the local community, two groups have opposing feelings towards tourism; young tour operators and park employees who accrue the benefits, and other residents, return visitors, and agricultural workers who view tourists as intruders. While the park works to promote local culture and environmental conservation, it prioritizes tourist attraction and revenue generation. The historic agricultural landscape itself has become only an indirect source of income. Gatti and Fornelli argue that, “the risk, then, is a loss of authenticity, value, true and intrinsic worth of a land not only popular for its scenic beauty, but also because of its expression of an ancient culture.”
18
The disaster that occurred on October 25, 2011 exhibits the consequences of under valuing the landscape. The gradual disappearance of the privately owned historic agricultural landscape not only has social implication, but such large scale natural disaster also destroys the scenic value of the Cinque Terre. The once lush hillsides are scarred with hundreds of landslides. The pristine ocean was made turbid by runoff debris.
Previously established infrastructure such as hiking trails, restaurants, and hotels have been destroyed and no can longer accommodate visitors unless there is adequate financial support from the Italian government and the international community.
The State of Conservation of World Heritage Properties in Europe Section II (2006) includes a paragraph on the management and the monitoring of threats and risks to the region. At the time that this was written in 2006, there were no formal monitoring programs. This document briefly reported on the development, environmental, and tourism pressures which may pose some risks regarding the nature environment. Soil erosion risk in coastal areas and fire hazards were also briefly mentioned. The inscription of the region as a World Heritage Site was most importantly an advantage to increase the international presence (Comer 2012). However, no solid plans were in progress to address hazards of risks to conservation. These site managers did not anticipate the degree to which the landscape has become unstable nor did then anticipate the effect of future tourism on the environment. Furthermore, inscribing a site on the World Heritage
List does not give the UN or UNESCO any authority to management the site. UNESCO does not provide direct monetary support to the sight in cases of emergencies, mandate annual evaluations of the conditions of natural and cultural heritage, or require changes in
19 domestic law to favor conservation. This formal recognition of values does little to preserve these valuable heritage for future generations (Williems 2012, Comer 2012).
3.2 Vulnerability Framework
The impact of the 2011 flood on the Cinque Terre towns highlights the vulnerability of tourism destinations to environmental shocks. This paper, therefore, must first define disaster, hazard, and vulnerability. There are as many different definitions of disaster as there are types of disasters. However, all of the definitions underline the fact that a disaster necessitates more than just a localized response in order for the affected community to recover or survive. The damages incurred during the disaster event overwhelm the response capability of a community. A hazard is an extreme geophysical event that can lead to a disaster. Natural disasters are considered as the interface between hazards and vulnerable conditions that can arise from social-economic, cultural, and/or political conditions created by people. (Paul 2011).
Vulnerability is not just the exposure to hazards but also the sensitivity and resilience of the system experiencing such hazards. Current research in vulnerability assessment includes the consideration of human-environment systems with the goal of meeting the needs of society while supporting environmental sustainability. Turner et al.
(2003) proposed the following questions to be asked by scientists and decision makers while evaluating a landscape:
1. Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple environmental and human changes underway and where? 2. How are these changes and their consequences attenuated or amplified by different human and environmental conditions? 3. What can be done to reduce vulnerability to change? 4. How may more resilient and adaptive communities and societies be built?
20
The answers to these questions create a conceptual framework that relates human and environmental systems. Turner’s vulnerability analysis derives from the risk-hazard (RH) model and the pressure-and-release (PAR) model. The growing role of multiple stakeholders in defining vulnerability increases the need for a more multifaceted framework in place-based analysis where data collection is based on field immersion of the researcher. The use of place-based approaches can create general characterizations and common methods to be used in different result projects in different location. In addition, place-based analysis carries the potential for increased public involvement and collaborative assessment of hazards (Turner et. al 2003, Calgaro & Lloyd 2008).
The current vulnerability literature rarely focuses on vulnerabilities of specifically tourist communities nor does not address the interconnected and the complexities of the tourists, the locals, and the physical landscape. Calgaro and Lloyd examined disaster vulnerability in the tourism community of Khao Lak, Thailand after the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami. However, their research answered what sociopolitical and environmental conditions contributed to the vulnerability of the tourism community by interviewing resident stakeholders. This project builds on top of the model developed from this study to incorporate not just the local social environment but also how it relates to the international tourist community. This interaction between the locals and the visitors are explored in terms of what different groups value in the heritage landscape.
21
3.2.1 Exposure
Different components within a system have different exposures to hazards. Within the Vernazza system, there are three different components: residents (including the park authority), visitors, and the landscape itself. Vernazza is defined by unique rock formations and clusters of colorful houses surrounding Via Roma which leads down to the natural harbor and the main piazza (Figure 1). There are a number of restaurants and historical sites of interest. For example, the Church of Santa Margherita di Antiochia ,a typical example of Ligmian Gothic architecture, is a historic monument with great cultural value situated in the main piazza (Associazione Culturale Cinque Terre 2009).
The landscape surrounding the Vernazza includes vineyards managed by Cheo Wine , houses perched on hillsides, small gardening plots owned by individual families or forested areas of the national park. Hiking Trail #2 (Figure 2) which leads hikers from
Riomaggiore to Monterosso al Mare traverses through Vernazza and its surrounding terrain. All of these components interact with each other and all of these components are exposed to natural hazards.
Figure 1. View of the Church of Santa Margherita di Antiochia from Vernazza’s harbor.
22
Figure 2. View of Vernazza from the stretch of Hiking Trail #2 between Corngilia and Vernazza.
3.2.2 Sensitivity
Calgaro and Lloyd (2006) defines sensitivity as, “the degree to which an exposure is affected by any set of stressed which reflect the capacity of individuals or groups to anticipate and withstand the impacts of a hazard.” Preexisting conditions of the social system may be exposed and reevaluated post-shock. Sensitivity examines the human- environment relationship within a system and this relationship may determine the ability, preparedness, or barriers of a community to rebuild after a disaster.
3.2.2.1 Human conditions
Human conditions in the Cinque Terre can be explored in terms of the relationship between the following three groups: visitors, residents who benefit directly from the tourism industry whether by direct or indirect employment (Figure 3), and residents who are inconvenienced by tourism. Tourism literature identifies five factors that contribute to
23 the sensitivity of a destination: place-specific nature of tourist activity, fragility of destination image to negative perceptions of risk, high dependency on tourism as a primary livelihood, and heavy reliance on marketing strategies of international tour operators (Calgaro & Lloyd 2006). Although the Cinque Terre is highly dependent on tourism as its primary livelihood, it may be less vulnerable to the negative image if visitors believe that the Cinque Terre experience is irreplaceable by other destinations.
Visitors who value the authenticity and uniqueness of the landscape may be less likely to pick an alternate destination even in wake of a disaster.
Figure 3. Locals rebuilding the bank in time for peak tourist season.
24
3.2.2.2Environmental conditions
The environmental conditions of the Ligurian coast span a surface area of about
4800 square kilometers. The main geomorphic features are the closeness of the watershed to the ocean and the steepness of the slopes facing the Tyrrhenian Sea (Figure 4).
Because of these geologic features, many intensively urbanized regions in Liguria present high levels of flood risk and soil erosion. Surface geomorphology of the coastline shows a natural tendency for erosion with main degradation features being debris flow and rotational or complete landslides (Figure 5). Several large historical landslides have been recorded although none that completely destroyed whole towns like the 2011 disaster
(Brancucci & Paliaga 2006).
Figure 4. Geomorphology of the Cinque Terre landscape
25
Figure 5. The path of a landslide that originated from Lise Bertram’s vineyard. The agricultural landscape of the Cinque Terre was morphologically characterized by historic dry-stone walled terraces. These walls warrant a special historical significance because no one today would build walls and stairs to start a vineyard. Man-made terraces that once covered 15% of the total surface area of Liguria were the solution to erosion and flood (Brancucci & Paliaga 2006).
The knowledge of terracing spread through the exchange of different population groups of Europe and therefore, evidence of terraced walls, especially used for viticulture, may be seen across Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, and Croatia (Figure 6). Critical to erosion prevention, the subdividing of a vineyard into multiple levels provided farmers a way to manage water. Furthermore, these terraces were easier to farm and maintain than crops grown on steep gradients. Building walls without any mortar was the dominant technique seen in many European heritage landscapes for several reasons. Firstly, during the building process, the stone mason only
26 had to transport stones to an elevated building site instead of expensive mortar. Secondly, the stone walls promoted drainage during wet period and helped soil retain moisture during dry periods (Petit et al. 2012).
Figure 6. Dry stone masons restoring a wall after the 2011 disaster. However, large quantities of water from heavy downpours for a prolonged period of time may over burden the retaining walls. The downward pressure exerted by the slope in combination with the downward pressure of rain may cause walls to buckle and landslides to occur (Petit et al. 2012). The Interreg III Alpter Project found a number of wall disorders – upset, bulged, or collapsed in abandoned terraces around Liguria. The lack of rainfall runoff management process implies that the degradation of terraces have the potential to move like avalanches. Today, the heritage terraced landscapes are rapidly degrading due to land abandonment. Declining cost effectiveness and demanding physical labor couple with new revenue opportunities created through tourism catalyzed this on-going decline (Petit et al. 2012). This mismanagement acts as a human-induced
27 chronic hazard on the surrounding villages. Chronic hazards are not isolated events
Figure 7). Rather, it forms from a long term lack of maintenance which slowly compromised the area’s hydrogeological balance (Paul 2011).
Figure 3. Scarred hill slide from multiple landslides in Vernazza.
3.3.3 Resilience
Resilience is the last component of the vulnerability framework and it is negatively correlated with vulnerability. An increase in the resilience of a destination arises from a decrease in its vulnerability. Resilience may be described as a community’s ability to buffer or absorb shocks during extreme events (Turner et al. 2003, Paul 2011).
In the Cinque Terre, resilience can be divided into the coping response of locals
28 following a disaster, the impact response of the national park, and finally adjustment and adaptation response of the whole community (Figure 8, Figure 9).
As derived from recounts of the 2011 disaster, locals formed a volunteer group in order to look for those who were missing or trapped and took responsibility of evacuating foreign visitors. Locals also established two donation organizations, Save
Vernazza ONLUS and Per Vernazza Futura ONLUS, in order to relay the situation to the international community and collect donations to rebuild. The national park and the comune government, with the help of local volunteers, worked to dig out Vernazza from under the debris that buried the town.
However, this coping capacity is only a part of the resilience response. Whether a community is more resilient depends on its economic, institution, social, and environmental attributes (Paul 2011). Resilience also needs to be constantly evolving as to adjust to the changing realities. Adjustment and adaptation response can enhance resilience by adapting to hazards and learning from disasters. For example, the summer following the disaster, a group of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Turin surveyed the landscape using LiDar and GIS technology to calculate how much land was lost. Save Vernazza ONLUS and Per Vernazza Futura ONLUS both donated money to rebuild dry stone walls for Cheo Wine. Lord Richard Rogers, a renowned architect also conducted a feasibility study for the regeneration of the village. Roger’s plan is to rebuild the public spaces along the village’s main streets starting in January, 2013. These adaptive responses will adjust the human and environmental sensitivity of Vernazza to chronic hazards.
29
Figure 8. Scaled causal factor contributing to Vernazza’s vulnerability following Turner et al.’s (2003) vulnerability framework.
Figure 9. The sustainability vulnerability framework proposed by Turner et al. (2003)
30
CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY
“We need to connect the tourism to the wine because only through winegrowing can the landscape be saved. Or everything will happen something like Vernazza because the flood was terrible, but it was terrible because the landscape is not intact anymore.” -Catherina Ungar, Owner of Arbaspàa Tours This study collected qualitative and quantitative data for the month of July of
2012 in Vernazza because the place-specific nature of vulnerability. Vernazza was chosen as the location for this study because it was the most affected village in the
Cinque Terre. The fact that Italy had an established tourism sector and that Italy has an abundant number of sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List makes this site particularly relevant for future models of heritage site management. An exploratory literature review, coupled with secondary document analysis (news reports, NGO websites, and official government documents and UNESCO documents) identified the key stakeholders in the Vernazza community that needed to be contacted. During the course of one month, 200 surveys were distributed to visitors between the hours of
10:00am to 5:00pm on the main street, Via Roma. Seven residential sources were collected through primary research and secondary research. Each source was coded for major variables and reduced for analysis
4.1 Local residents data collection
4.1.1 Primary interviews
The representative who was interviewed from the park is Daniele Moggia, the Chair of Communications for national park. He is also a collaborator with Alexander Villa on a working holiday project, Protect the Cinque Terre, and the founder of a local donor
31 organization for flood relief, Per Vernazza Futura ONLUS. The following questions were asked of Mr. Moggia during a one hour and twenty minutes long in depth interview session:
i. What is the role of the Parco Nazionale? ii. What is the relationship between the Parco and the three separate Comunes that make up the Cinque Terre? iii. What is the relationship between the Parco and UNESCO? iv. What are some problems that the Parco have to address in the Cinque Terre? v. How is the Parco organized to target specific problems? vi. How and where is the money collected from the hiking trail tickets spent? vii. What is the role of agriculture in the Cinque Terre? viii. What is the vision/goal of the Parco for sustainably managing tourism. Ms. Catherina Unger, the founder and owner of Arbaspàa Tours was interviewed because of her position as a tour operator. Arbaspàa Tours is a local travel agency that offers a selection of tours in the region of Liguria including to the Cinque Terre. The
Cinque Terre tour packages include the following: romantic trip to Cinque Terre, scenic flights over the Cinque Terre, the Cinque Terre: Our Landscape, the Wines, the People,
Cinque Terre: Hiking & Wine, the Azure Day Sailing Course, Fisherman for a Day, and the Cinque Terre Wine. Tours are offered in both English and German due to Ms.
Catherina Unger’s German background. Over the thirty minute interview with Ms. Unger at the Arbaspàa headquarters, the following questions were asked:
i. What is the significance of the title of your organization? ii. How is your agency structured? iii. What differentiates your tour programs from other programs in the Cinque Terre? iv. What does an “authentic visitor experience” mean for you? v. What does the term “sustainable tourism” signify to you? vi. How did you first come up with the conception of combining “wining and hiking”? vii. What do you think is the role of wine in the Cinque Terre? viii. How are you incorporating Vendemmia into your tour programs?
32
4.1.1 Secondary data collection
Additional secondary research was collected from the SaveVernazza.com website, a nonprofit fundraising website founded by a group of American women who lived in
Vernazza: Michele Lilley, Michelle Sherman, and Ruth Manfredi. The Save Vernazza
ONLUS organization specifically targets international donors and serves as a complimentary body to Per Vernazza Futura ONLUS, a local organization targeting
Italian donors. Both Save Vernazza ONLUS and Per Vernazza Futura ONLUS work closely with the local governmental and the donors to allocate funds. The Save Vernazza
Blog was used for personal recounts by these three women. The website also provided a
CBS news clip about the disaster with statements from Lilley and Sherman. A Canadian radio show CBC, also conducted an interview with Sherman. The website contained links to interviews with Lise Bertram, a local wine producer and Mayor Vincenzo Resasco.
Mayor Vincenzo Resasco was elected in July of 2009. He has been working tirelessly to rebuild Vernazza and to welcome visitors back to Vernazza.
Michele Lilley is an American film producer who has lived in Vernazza for the past twelve years with her Vernazzan husband and daughter. She is the co-owner of the
Bottega D’arte store in Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. She currently serves as the
Vice President of the Executive Board for Save Vernazza ONLUS. Ruth Manfredi,
President of the Executive Committee of Save Vernazza ONLUS, was born and raised in
New York but has been living in Italy since 1999 where she was a Strategy Manager at
Accenture in Milan. She met her husband Cristiano Fornelli in 1995 and the couple has a second home in Vernazza. Michele Sherman, Director of the Executive Committee, was born in New York City and began her career as a Software Sales Account Executive in
33
San Francisco. She met her husband Giuliano in Vernazza on a solo backpacking trip in
2005. Together they ran a successful B&B in Vernazza “Camere Giuliano” and have a daughter together. In 2011, Sherman relocated to the nearby city of Lucca and founded a business to manage all electronic communications, bookings inquiries, reservation, and confirmations for a group of Vernazza small business owners.
Lise Bertram (Figure 10) is the owner of Cheo Wines, the only commercial winery in
Vernazza. She produces award-winning white wines and the local specialty, the sciaccetra wine with her husband Bartolomeo. The Cheo brand is recognized by the
Green Oscar awards for its dedication to sustainable farming practices. Both Bertram and her husband are retired University of Pisa professors in agriculture and horticulture. They first started producing wine for personal use on the family’s historic land. They have since expanded to manage plots of land all over the Vernazza region for other local families. Their original 1.4 hectares of land used for wine production was reduced by
10% because of the 2011 disaster, all of which were cultivated land with newly matured wine-producing grapes.
Figure 10. Lise Bertram at a newly rebuilt wall in her family’s vineyard.
34
An initial code sheet was developed to code different sections of interviews and blog posts . After the each transcript has been coded, common themes were tabulated. Local values were derived from a combination of multiple themes.
4.2 Visitor data collection
A questionnaire was created with thirteen questions and distributed through convenience sampling to visitors of Vernazza. The questionnaire was written in English with an international target audience; it was compiled based off of a list of suggested of questions in the 2002 “Managing Tourism at World Heritage Sites: a Practical Manual for
World Heritage Site Managers” published by UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The question content is intended for visitors who have already visited Vernazza; therefore, the survey booth was placed near the village train stations to ensure a sample of visitors leaving Vernazza (Appendix A). A brief introduction of the purpose of this project and the scope of the 2011 disaster was given prior to the questionnaire.
4.2.1 Establishing individual visitor profile
Question 1 asks for how many nights does the visitor intend to stay in the Cinque
Terre (Table 1). The duration of the stay usually determines the activities that the visitor will engage in while present in the Cinque Terre. From a sustainable tourism development perspective, the longer the length of stay, the more revenue Vernazzans can make per visitor.
Question 2 is a close-ended question that asks if the current visit is the visitor’s first time at the Cinque Terre site. The choices are: “yes” if he or she is a first time visitor or
“no” if he or she is a repeat visitor. An objective of a sustainable destination is to increase
35 its repeat visitors. Out of the total 172 visitors who participated in the survey, 32 were return visitors and 140 where first time visitors.
Table 1. Total number of visitors per nights of stay.
Nights of stay Number of visitors 0 nights (day visitors) 49 1-3 nights 79 4-7 nights 36 8-28 nights 4 29-91 nights 0 92-365 nights 0
Question 2 is a close-ended question that asks if the current visit is the visitor’s first time at the Cinque Terre site. The choices are: “yes” if he or she is a first time visitor or
“no” if he or she is a repeat visitor. An objective of a sustainable destination is to increase its repeat visitors. Out of the total 172 visitors who participated in the survey, 32 were return visitors and 140 where first time visitors.
Question 3 asks if the visitor is part of an all-inclusive tour. The purpose of this question is to account for how many visitors in the random sample group come as part of an organized tour. Tour operators are the opinion leaders of the tourism industry. After a disaster event such as the flood, tour operators many be instrumental in educating their clients on the situation of the damaged site, the cause of the damages, and what their clients may do to help. Out of the total 172 participants, 9 were part of an all-inclusive tour and 163 were not.
Question 12 and 13 are demographic questions placed at the end of the survey.
Question 12 asked for the age range of the participants (Table 2). Question 13 asked the participants to fill in the blank following the question: where are you from? By far, the
36 most number of visitors from one country came from the United States followed by
Australia and Canada.
Table 2. Total number of visitors per age of visitors.
Age of visitors Number of visitors 15-24 40 25-34 43 35-44 25 45-54 33 55-64 22 ≥ 65 5
37
Table 3. Total number of visitors by country of residence.
Country of residence Total visitors United States 54 Australia 20 Canada 13 Multinational 10 Netherlands 10 Germany 9 France 7 Sweden 7 United Kingdom 7 Italy 6 Norway 4 Belgium 3 China 3 Demark 3 New Zealand 2 Poland 2 Romania 2 Argentina 1 Austria 1 Chili 1 Finland 1 Japan 1 Singapore 1 Spain 1 Switzerland 1 Turkey 1
38
4.2.2 Evaluating promotional materials
Question 4 asks which channels, if any, influenced the visitor’s decision to visit the
Cinque Terre (Table 4).
Table 4. Type of information channel that influenced visitor destination selection.
Information channel Total visitors who used this channel
A previous trip 31 Word of mouth 100 Tourist information center 10 Guide book 34 Television 5 Radio 0 Other (internet) 16 Other (print media) 2 Note: Visitors had the option of picking multiple information channels.
Question 5 specifically gauges if the online flood related promotional materials reached the target visitor groups. This question asks if the visitors knew about the flood before visiting the Cinque Terre with choices of “yes” or “no”. Out of the 172 participants, 74 visitors were aware of the disaster before his or her visit and 97 visitors were not.
4.2.3 Evaluating activities and attractions engaged in Vernazza
Question 6 presents the visitor with a list of possible activities that she or he could have engaged in during his or her visit to Vernazza. The different activities listed (Table
5) have different strategic importance to the park. Which activities tourists engaged in
39 could be relevant to what the tourists valued. Some of the following activities, while valued by residents, may still need to be promoted.
Table 5. Tabulation of visitor activities.
Activity Number of visitors Hiking trail #2 (Paid) 109 Swimming 95 Hiking trails other than #2 31 Wine tasting 18 Visiting a sanctuary 16 None of these 15 Other (casual sightseeing) 12 Other (dining) 8 Other (shopping) 5
4.2.4 Evaluating the visit
Open and closed-ended questions are used to evaluate the visit (Appendix B).
Questions 7,8, and 9 are all open questions to engage the feeling of the visitor about his or her time spent in the Cinque Terre. The visitor has the choice to elaborate and offer suggestions for the local community. Question 7 asks if there are any specific ways in which the community of Vernazza can improve the village to make the visit more enjoyable. Question 8 asks what the most enjoyable part of the visit to the Cinque Terre was. Question 9 asks what the least enjoyable part of the visit was. Because of the qualitative nature of questions 7-9, answers to each question were assigned a specific code number.
40
Questions 10 and 11 are closed ended questions. Question 10 asks how likely the visitor is to come back to Cinque Terre in the future:
a) Very likely b) Likely c) Don’t know d) Unlikely e) Very unlikely Question 11 asks how likely the visitor is to recommend the Cinque Terre as a travel destination:
a) Very likely b) Likely c) Don’t know d) Unlikely e) Very unlikely Questions 10 and 11 are unbalanced Likert-scales. A number of 1-5 was assigned to each answer choice and the code number 6 indicates that the visitor did not answer this question.
4.3 Sampling limitations
There are several major limitations to the project. First, the language barrier made accessing the majority of the local population very difficult. The research has a very limited sample size of only those who could speak English. The majority of residents used in this study were not native to Vernazza, but rather perminietly moved there because they married natives (Michele Lilley, Michele Sherman, Ruth Manfredi, Lise
Bertram, Catherina Ungar).
The short timeframe to conduct the surveys during the month of July is another limitation in the research. The Mediterranean climate of the Cinque Terre makes the summer months prime time for tourists seeking a beach vacation. The number of tourists
41 who participated in beach activities in relation to other activities may be disportionally high. September, for example, is when Vendenmia, the annual grape harvest usually occurs. Visitors in September may participate in more wine related activities.
Different times of the year also bring tourists from different parts of the world.
Feburary is particularly popular with Chinese tourists because it coincides with the
Chinese New Years holiday when people travel internationally. July is holiday time for many Europeans and university students bu t not typically when Central and South
Americans take vacations. This research may have represent a disporportionate number
Europeans in comparason to other groups.
The survey also did not account for non-english speaking tourists. Many older tourists from Japan and China, for example, could not participate in the survey. Another factor that contributes to the limited number of tourists represented from Asian countries is that most of these tourists are day visitors arriving on cruise ships. They follow a strict schedule under the direction of their tour guide and could not leave the group in order to fill out the survey.
42
CHAPTER 5 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
“I’d like to say to our people that we have to live in this situation for some months and we have to pay attention to the weather because Vernazza is not safe at all.” - Mayor Vincenzo Resasco in a 2012 interview with Save Vernazza ONLUS 5.1 Resident values
Each local resident spoke about slightly different topics all related to the disaster in Vernazza because of his or her personal background. However, there were commonalities between these sources and 15 major themes (Table 6) were derived from the initial coding of primary and secondary interviews, news articles, and blogs of these seven local residents. The most commonly mentioned concerns with five residential statements were about the presence of the chronic hazard of landslides, the high cost to rebuild, and the loss of agricultural heritage from ancestors of Vernazza (Appendix B).
Table 6. Tabulation of major themes derived from statements of residents.
Themes Passages Participants Presence of chronic natural hazard from rain (i) 15 5 High cost to rebuild (ii) 13 5 Agricultural practice inherited from ancestors (iii) 12 5 Barriers keep tourists from authentic experience (iv) 10 2 Deterioration of dry stone walls (v) 7 4 Need to build sustainable tourism (vi) 6 2 Youth are more attached to tourist revenue (vii) 5 2 Tourism will help the rebuilding process (viii) 5 2 Tourist to experience the authentic Cinque Terre (ix) 4 1 Politics is a barrier to financing (x) 4 2 Lack of wine producers (xi) 4 3 Local wine needs to be better marketed to tourists (xii) 4 2 Tourism as key revenue generator (xiii) 3 2 Wine is key to preserving the landscape (xiv) 2 2 Cost of local wine production is high (xv) 2 1
43
A combination of several of themes established four specific values that the local residents placed on the landscape. The first value of safety of residents and tourists resulted from themes (i), (ii), and (v). Specific statements from four residents can be viewed in Table 7. The second value of agricultural heritage incorporates themes (iii),
(xi), (xiv), and (xv) and statements from six residents are shown in Table 8. Tourist revenue is the third value emphasized by various residents. This value incorporated themes (vii), (viii), (x), and (xiii) and statements from residents are listed in Table 9. The last value is tourist involvement derived from themes (vi), (ix), and (xii). Statements of four residents can be found in Table 10.
Table 7. Statements supporting the value of safety of residents and tourists.
Value Participants Statements Yes, I have always been afraid of the rain. I’ve heard of people afraid of the sea and the sea storm but I’ve always been afraid of the rain because I know how many damages Lise Bertram it can give. We have had some years were a lot of rain during the winter time. And whenever it’s raining the dry walls are in danger. It’ll take 50 [million] they say simply to put the town in “sicurezza”, which means to make it safe again to allow Michele the residents to return. Additionally, then, thereafter, 58 Sherman million or so will be required to build the town back to the Safety of way it was. Residents and We are a tour operator(...) We have to be very secure that Tourists everything, probably you have to make some insurance if Catherina somebody has (…) I don’t know if you have seen out Ungar vineyards, they are not always perfect to walk in. Sometimes you have to climb, sometimes the way is unsecure Another thing that I’d like to know and I like to say to our Mayor people is that we have to live in this situation for some Vincenzo months and we have to pay attention to the weather Resasco because Vernazza is not safe at all. We are aware to solve this problem but we’ll need also a lot of money.
44
Table 8. Statements supporting the value of agricultural heritage.
Value Participants Statements There are only three or four things: landscape, the agriculture, “heroic agriculture,” is called the agriculture in Cinque Terre you can see, a history of poverty in Cinque Terre. They were poor persons. They don’t have beautiful Daniele things. There are no colloseo or the Sistine Chapel. It’s a Moggia simple church, simple houses. But the importance is the landscape that our grandfather and grand grand grandfather have made. They transformed this territory from a natural territory to a territory made by man. (…) our landscape is very special landscape created for growing wine. Only for growing wine. The whole Catherina landscape is terraced and their what makes the Cinque Ungar Terre so special. The whole landscape is terraced. Once, there was 7000 km of dry stone walls. That’s what made the Cinque Terre a UNESCO.
Agricultural But there is this great spirit of community in Vernazza and Heritage Mayor all the inhabitants of Vernazza are very strong and they Vincenzo want to restore Vernazza and have a new Vernazza. Resasco More…more interested in the territory, in the agriculture, and in the environment.
If you want a glimpse into the past, if you want to walk amongst the vineyards, if you want to say a “buon lavoro” Michele to a man tending to his hillside garden with its Sherman Mediterranean blue backdrop and a glimpse an old coastal fishing village way down below, take the high road!
We also discussed Vernazza’s territory and the amount of work over the centuries to create this man-made environment of drystone wall terracing, agriculture’s Ruth historical importance to the economy and the current Manfredi challenges of maintaining the territory, a goal that is dear to Save Vernazza.
We are the only ones who commercially produce wine in Vernazza. One of the reasons that we are producing wine was really to restore this hillside that’s just behind Lise Bertram Vernazza. So let’s show what agriculture once was in Vernazza. We thought that this hillside was could be very, very beautiful but it was all left off and covered with vines and trees was growing.
45
Table 9. Statements of value supporting tourist revenue.
Value Participants Statements San Bernardino is a tidy little hamlet which seems to have been deserted by its inhabitants who have moved Michele Lilley down the hill to Vernazza chasing the dream of prosperity known as tourism.
All of our winegrowers are making wine as a second work, as a hobby. You cannot live from that. You could, Catherina but not from a Western European country. You can’t, it’s Ungar impossible to live on that from the expectations you have on life today. I mean, no. So most of the people are running a restaurant, hotel, or some room (...)
We can say that we can have some people come back this summer. We are also working on the path, also working Mayor for the village, we are also working for the harbor, also Vincenzo for this, it is not easy, we’ll need some time. It is not a Tourist Resasco problem of months but years. I think this summer; we can Revenue open the village to the tourists to see what’s happened but to see also the improvement of Vernazza in these months.
Cultivation of the land is not what it was 100 years ago. Michele People maybe have taken more of an interest in tourism Sherman because it is the revenue source of the village and their tending to the land has become more and more of a hobby. We see that more in the younger generation.
Only two things grow in this area: Bed and Breakfast and money earned by people who have bar and restaurants and sell other things (…) souvenirs. It’s a Daniele problem...When in 2011, I think, start the ticket of the Moggia trails, we said that maybe there will be no more tourists come here. The tourists have been duplicated from 1000 to 10,000. Because people think, “if I pay something. It’s a particular think. It’s a beautiful thing.”
46
Table 10. Statements of value supporting tourist involvement.
Value Participants Statements Save Vernazza hopes that providing informational walks will promote sustainable tourism by educating visitors about Vernazza’s unique territory of natural beauty and traditional, man-made dry stone wall Ruth terracing, the devastation of October 25, 2011 and the Manfredi consequences for the preservation of Vernazza’s territory and culture. We are sharing Vernazza’s road to recovery and rebirth with people and making a few new friends along the way!
We need to connect the tourism to the wine because only through winegrowing can the landscape be saved. Or everything will happen something like Vernazza because the flood was terrible, but it was Catherina terrible because the landscape is not intact anymore. Unger There were a lot of abandoned fields and the water came through and took away all the walls and stones and earth.
Because I was in a business in Vernazza for the last six Tourist years, I dealt with tourism and tourist. And many Involvement wonderful people from all over the world. I was able to see firsthand the effect that this town has on people. It’s hard to put into words but you go there, you make friends certainly with the town’s people, and you make Michele a friendship with the village. The village takes on a Sherman persona of sorts and we get people who come back every year. People who stay in touch over the years if they can’t make it back every year. So we just knew that there were people far and wide all over the place. You know, Canada, United States, Australia, and across the world who that only know, would want to help.
Yes, I think if a tourist came here in Cinque Terre, he have to taste the wine of Cinque Terre. And so , marketing and to promote the Cinque Terre wine. Also, Daniele the tourist must be more informed from us because Moggia instead he prefers to drink Chianti. He knows Chianti and he /does not know the Cinque Terre wine. Here, the bars and the restaurants, we have to work together to start to drink ours.
47
5.2 Tests for value congruence
Exploratory analysis of seven residential sources established four different values that residents have placed on the landscape. Survey data collected from visitors were examined against each of these four values in order to examine whether tourists and visitors value the landscape differently. Each survey question was a measurable variable that was then tested through various statistical analyses.
5.2.1 Value 1: safety of residents and tourists
Three separate variables were identified in the visitor survey that could reflect whether visitors were concerned with their own safety or the safety of residents. The first variable was whether visitors were aware of the disaster. According to the survey, 74 visitors were aware of the disaster before his or her visit and 97 visitors were not. Visitors who did not know about the disaster would not have known about their exposure to the landslide hazards and therefore would not have had a reason to worry about safety. The fact that they chose Vernazza as a vacation destination further support the fact that visitor did not worry about safety.
The second variable that was examined in the survey was visitor’s suggestion for areas of improvement to Vernazza. If safety was valued by visitors, visitors might have listed safety initiatives or warning systems as areas of improvement. A cross tabulation
(Table 11) was used to compare different improvement suggestions across visitors from different regions of the world (Europe, Americas, Asia Pacific, Multinational). The aggregate result showed that the most common answer for visitors was that there were no areas of improvement that they would suggest followed by communications (more
48 signage on trails and more signage in English), public services (waste management, potable water, and more frequent transportation between towns), and crowds (visitor flow management). There were no mentions of safety concerns.
Table 11. Cross tabulation of suggested improvements by visitors.
Suggested Region of origin improvements Europe Americas Asia Pacific Multinational Total Total 68 76 27 11 182 Nothing 41 39 13 3 96 Communications 7 17 2 2 28 Public Services 11 10 4 2 27 Crowds 4 3 1 2 10 Transportation 2 1 3 1 7 Hospitality Services 3 1 1 1 6 Other 0 3 2 0 5 Smoking 0 1 1 0 2 Weather 0 1 0 0 1
The next survey question that was examined was what visitors least enjoyed during their visit to Vernazza. If visitors valued safety, the survey result might have shown that visitors least enjoyed their fear of a disaster at the time of the visit. A cross tabulation was again used to explore if visitors from different regions answered differently (Table 12). The most frequently given answer was that there was nothing that the visitor least enjoyed during his or her visitor to Vernazza. This answer was given 79 times. Visitors mentioned that they least enjoyed crowds from other visitors with answers such as “visitors like me” or “too many tourists.” These answers could suggest that
Vernazza has reached its capacity to accommodate tourists. Visitors also did not enjoy the lack of connecting trains during off-peak hours, the hot climate, the lack of public toilets and water fountains in Vernazza, the high price of food and souvenirs, rude waiters
49 or hotel employees, and the lack of signage in English and on Hiking Trail #2. There were no mentions about the fear for safety.
Table 12. Cross tabulation of what visitors least enjoyed during their visit to Vernazza.
Region of origin Least enjoy variables Europe Americas Asia Pacific Multinational Total Total 68 76 27 11 182 Nothing 39 27 10 3 79 Crowds 12 15 4 1 32 Transportation 5 5 3 4 17 Weather 1 11 4 0 16 Public Services 2 10 0 1 13 Price 4 4 2 0 10 Hospitality Services 3 0 4 1 8 Other 1 3 0 0 4 Communications 1 1 0 1 3
5.2.2 Value 2: agricutural heritage
Agricultural heritage can be determined by examining the descriptive statistics of two variables in the visitor survey. The first variable identifies which activities visitors participated in (Table 5). This research assumes that which activity a visitor engaged in is an indication of the value that he or she placed on the destination. The most common activity that visitors engaged in was hiking the paid national park Trail #2 which connects all five Cinque Terre towns. The second most common activity was swimming, followed by hiking trails other than Trail #2. A total of 18 visitors to Vernazza engaged in wine tasting as compared to 109 who hiked Trail #2, 95 who went swimming and 31 who hiked trailes other than trail #2. The number of people who connected wine to the Cinque
Terre is very low which would suggest visitors did not value the agricultural heritage, specifically the viticultural heritage of the Cinque Terre while vacationing there.
50
Related to which activities visitors engaged in, the survey also asked visitors to write about what they enjoyed most during their trip to Vernazza. This question assumes that what a visitor identifies as most enjoyable is also indicative of what they most value.
What visitors most enjoyed was cross tabulated with their region of origin (Table 13).
Scenery, hiking, sea, towns, food, and people were the top most enjoyable aspects of visitors’ trips while wine, transportation, and uniqueness were some of the less commonly mentioned aspects. This finding suggests that tourists saw the scenic value of the Cinque Terre which may include what they experienced while hiking, swimming in the ocean or sunbathing by the beach, and walking through the colorful houses of the five towns. However, it would seem from these results that visitors are not connecting the scenery of the Cinque Terre landscape with the use of the landscape to produce wine or else more visitors would have engage in wine tasting. The 9 out of the 172 visitors who did engage in wine tasting may seem to have a deeper understanding of how the locals value the agricultural landscape and drank Cinque Terre wine in order to support the local industry. One participant from Germany who was writing an article on Cheo Wine at the time wrote on the back of her survey,
There needs to be more sustainable tourism and more awareness for the landscape for that’s what makes the Cinque Terre special...the unique vineyards!!! Without the vineyards and their cultivation, the Cinque Terre won’t exist anymore. We have to save them! We would like to drink only Cinque Terre wines here and not products from other regions. People should pay entrance to the Naitonal Park for rebuilidng the walls to avoid other damage. The tourists have to be aware of the critical situation of the Cinque Terre.
51
Table 13. Cross tabulation of what visitors most enjoyed during their visit to Vernazza.
Region of origin Most enjoy variables Europe Americas Asia Pacific Multinational Total Total 82 119 42 18 261 Scenery 20 36 11 7 74 Hiking 10 20 5 2 37 Sea 10 11 10 3 34 Towns 21 10 2 1 34 Food 3 19 8 2 32 People 8 14 2 1 25 Wine 1 4 2 2 9 Transportation 6 1 2 0 9 Uniqueness 3 4 0 0 7 Note: Visitors often wrote about multiple factors that they enjoyed
5.2.3 Value 3: Tourist Revenue
Tourist revenue is of obvious importance to a destination where the main source of income comes from visitors. There are several factors that contribute to tourist revenue.
The number of nights that visitors stay in Vernazza is imporant because the longer visitors stay, the more revenue they will contribute to the local economy. Table 14 provides a descriptive statistics of the number of Nights of Stay for return visitors and for first time visitors. The average Night of Stay for return visitors is between 1-3 nights and
4-7 nights. The average Nights of Stay for first time visitors is between 0 nights and 1-3 nights. The scaled average nights of stay for first time visitors is 1.32 while the scaled average nights of stay for first time visitors is 0.88. An independent samples t-test was used to test the statistical difference between these two means. The difference between the number of nights is statistically significant with a p value of 0.001. On average, return visitors stayed more nights in Vernazza.
52
Table 14. Independent samples t-test of Nights of Stay for return and first time visitors
N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean
Return visitor 31 1.32 0.98 0.18
First time visitor 139 0.89 0.70 0.06
Leven's test for t-test for equality of means equality of variances 95% 95% Confidence Confidence Sig. interval of interval of (2- Mean Std. the the F Sig. t df tailed) difference error difference - difference - differ lower upper ence Equal 12.081 0.001 2.90 168 0.004 0.44 0.15 0.14 0.74 variances assumed
Equal 2.36 37.18 0.024 0.44 0.19 0.06 0.81 variances not assumed
Since return visitors contribute more to the local economy, this study then examines the Return and Recommendation ratings of visitors who participated in the survey on a
Likert-type scale with anchors being “strongly agree” at 5 and “strongly disagree” at 1
(Table 15). One-sample t-tests where used to determine whether the mean of the Return rating and Recommendation rating were significantly different from the neutral values 3.
The average rating for whether visitors would return is 4.19 with a mean difference of
1.19. The average rating for whether visitors would recommend Vernazza is 4.75 with a mean difference of 1.75. Both means were significantly greater than the neutral value of 3 with p = 0.001. On average, visitors favorably rated that they would return to and recommend Vernazza.
53
Table 15. One-sample t-test for average Recommend and Return ratings
N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean
Recommend 169 4.19 0.66 0.05
Return 169 4.19 0.92 0.07
Test Value = 3 t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean difference 95% 95% Confidence Confidence interval of the interval of the difference - difference - upper lower
34.18 168 0.000 1.75 1.64 1.85 Recommend 16.82 168 0.000 1.19 1.05 1.33 Return
Visitor return ratings and recommendation ratings were also tested for correlation.
This correlation is significant with p ≤ 0.01. The Pearson correlation value of 0.52 shows that Return and Recommend ratings are moderately, positively correlated (Table 16).
Visitors who indicated a more favorable rating for Return also tend to indicate a more favorable rating for Recommend. Visitors seem to have positive experience in Vernazza which may help buffer this destination to negative perception in case of future adversity.
Two univeriate regression analysis were conducted. The first was to determine if the return rating can be predicted by the number of activities visitors did. The regression results are significant to p = 0.05. The second regression analysis tested if the recommend rating can be predicted by the number of activies. One again, the results are significant to a p = 0.01. Although the value for both regression are only 0.04 , having more tourists engage in more activites increase the overall satisfaction of their visit as marked by return
54 and recommend rates. It is a more sustainable better business practice to encourage more activities, especially those that exposes visitors to the cultural heritage of the landscape.
Table 16. Correlation text between Return and Recommend ratings.
Return Recommend Return Pearson correlation 1 0.52** Sig. (2-tailed) 0.00 Sum of squared and cross products 141.94 53.14 Covariance 0.85 0.32 N 169 169
Recommend Pearson correlation 0.52** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) 0.00 Sum of squared and cross products 53.14 74.06 Covariance 0.32 0.44 N 169 169 **Coorelation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Whether disasters contribute to a negative image that deters visitation is also important. Similarly, organizations such as Save Vernazza ONLUS hopes that return visitors will want to stay longer in order to help the local economy. In independent samples t-test (Table 17) was used to compared the scaled average length of stay between visitors who were aware of natural disaster and visitors who were not. The scaled number of nights that visitors who were aware is 1.03 nights and for those who were not aware is 0.88 nights. The differences in the number of nights stayed between these two groups of visitors is not significant with p = 0.20. Visitors to Vernazza who were aware of the disaster stay on average, an equal number of nights to those visitors who were not.
55
Table 17. Independent samples t-test for Aware and Unaware of flood.
N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean
Unaware of disaster 74 0.89 0.74 0.09
Aware of disaster 95 1.03 0.80 0.08
Leven's test t-test for equality of means for equality of variances F Sig. t df Sig. Mean Std. Error 95% 95% (2- difference Difference Confiden Confidenc tailed) ce e interval interval of the of the difference difference - upper - lower Equal variances 0. 0.77 -1.27 169 0.21 -0.15 0.12 -0.39 0.08 assumed 9 -1.29 162.47 0.20 -0.15 0.12 -0.39 0.08 Equal variances not assumed
5.2.4 Value 4: tourist participation
Multiple Pearson Chi square tests were used to examine if return visitors were more likely to participate in different activities than first time visitors. However, there where no significant differences in any of the activities. There was also a very limited number of return visitors and overall limited participation in activities such as hiking trails other than trail #2, wine tasting, and visiting a sanctuary. The results from multiple
Chi-square tests suggests that return visitors and first time visitors participated in similar activities of hiking Trail #2 and swimming. If visitors were not aware of the agricultural heritage in Vernazza during their first visit, they may still not know during a repeat visit and will not incorporate that aspect of Vernazza into their visit.
56
Pearson Chi-square tests were also used to test if visitors who knew about the disaster participated in different activities. The results would suggest although visitors knew about the disaster, they may not have connected the disaster to its cause, which is the degradation of the land. Without this understanding, visitors still participated in activities that primarily focus on the scenic value of the landscape.
Lastly, a one-way ANOVA test (Table 18) was used to examine the average number of activities participants engaged in depending on the number of nights they stayed. The differences between the means of the number of activities was significant with p ≤ 0.01. A Scheffe Post Hoc test (Table 19) was used to determine which of the different nights of stay were different. The number of activities that day visitors participated in was significantly different from visitors who stay between 1-3 nights (p <
0.05) and visitors who stayed 4-7 nights (p = 0.01).
Table 18. One-way ANOVA test for Night of Stay
Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig. Between Groups 11.86 3 3.95 5.21 0.002 Within Groups 126.03 166 0.76 Total 137.89 169
57
Table 19. Post Hoc Scheffe test of Nights of Stay and number of activities engaged.
95% 95% Confidenc Confidenc e interval e interval Mean - lower - upper differenc Std. bound bound (I) Nights of stay (J) Nights of stay e (I-J) Error Sig. 0 nights (day visitor) 1-3 nights -0.47* 0.16 0.03 -0.91 -0.03 4-7 nights -0.69 0.19 0.01 -1.22 -0.15 8-28 nights -0.77 0.45 0.41 -2.05 0.51 0 nights (day 1-3 nights visitor) 0.47* 0.16 0.03 0.03 0.91 4-7 nights -0.22 0.18 0.68 -0.71 0.28 8-28 nights -0.30 0.45 0.93 -1.56 0.96 0 nights (day 4-7 nights visitor) 0.69* 0.19 0.01 0.15 1.22 1-3 nights 0.22 0.18 0.68 -0.28 0.71 8-28 nights -0.08 0.46 0.99 -1.38 1.21 0 nights (day 8-28 nights visitor) 0.77 0.45 0.41 -0.51 2.05 1-3 nights 0.30 0.45 0.93 -0.96 1.56 4-7 nights 0.08 0.46 0.99 -1.21 1.38 *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
58
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION
“If you want a glimpse into the past, if you want to walk amongst the vineyards, if you want to say a “buon lavoro” to a man tending to his hillside garden with its Mediterranean blue backdrop and a glimpse an old coastal fishing village way down below, take the high road!” -Michele Sherman, Director of the Executive Committee, Save Vernazza
The purpose of this study was to examine whether local residents and visitors of
Vernazza placed valued the Cinque Terre landscape differently. The components of residents, visitors, and the landscape are all exposed to the same chronic environmental hazard of landslides in the region. Different views placed on the landscape by the residents and the visitors may affect tourism development and conservation policies that exacerbate this chronic hazard. This study builds upon previous research of site specific vulnerability analysis proposed by Turner et al.(2003) developed by Calgaro and Lloyd
(2006) for post disaster vulnerability analysis at a tourist destination.
Four major values were found through analysis of resident data. Residents valued safety for themselves and for the visitors. However, visitors did not share this concern because they were either not aware that a disaster happened or did not understand the root cause of the disaster and the presence of the chronic hazard. Residents also emphasized agricultural heritage as a major value they place on the landscape.
Visitors on the other hand value the scenic beauty of the landscape by choosing to participate in non-wine related activities such as hiking and swimming. Many commented on the breathtaking view of the ocean against the green backdrop of the hills without understanding that it is the agricultural heritage that created these hills and without the continued existence of agricultural practices, the treasured scenery will change.
59
Tourist revenue is crucial for the livelihoods of the residents as well as for the reconstruction of Vernazza . Tourists who stayed longer invested more into the local economy. Because many of tourists to the area heard about this destination through word- of-mouth, the fact that visitors favorably indicated that they would recommend their trip will contribute to the sustainability of tourism. However, many tourists also indicated that one of the least favorite part of their visit was tourist volume. Some of the side effects that can be seen are the poor management of public services. Bathrooms are often overcrowded and unclean. Trains rides are unpleasant during the summer months because of tourist volume. Future site managers might look at ways to extend the tourist season, limit the number or tourists allowed on trails, or find other ways to address the large the number of visitors.
Lastly, residents value tourist participation in activities that will help them connect with the natural and cultural heritage of the landscape. Tour operators and park officials want to rebuild Vernazza into a sustainable tourism destination. One way for a destination to be more sustainable is to increase the length of stay of visitors.
The visitor survey showed that those who stayed longer in Vernazza participated in more activities. The longer the stay, the better the visitors can form an attachment to the landscape and the residents and can better understand the inherent value of the landscape.
Although the 2011 disaster devastated the community of Vernazza and exposed the community’s weak socio-environmental system, it is also a catalyst for the reevaluation of community values. Tourism created new opportunities for people to start businesses with high income potential. However, the development of tourism options
60 reduced the attraction of traditional livelihood, leaving the historical terraced landscape for agriculture largely abandoned. Only a minority of local tour operators engage tourists in the historic wine culture. Livelihood diversification is a key strategy to reduce vulnerability in the Cinque Terre to multiple shocks. Another method is to stress the uniqueness of the natural and cultural landscapes in order to convey to visitors that a vacation to the Cinque Terre is irreplaceable. In order to do so, visitors need to understand the inherent value of the heritage landscape created through generations of “heroic agriculture” instead of just its scenic value.
It is recommended that a full-scale vulnerability assessment be conducted to include analysis of the environmental components in the vulnerability framework as well as a year-long, multilingual survey for tourists and more in depth interviews in Italian with a more representative sample of the local population. The advantages of such assessment are critical to shape the response needed to make Vernazza and other Cinque
Terre towns more resilient to chronic disasters. Incorporating a more in depth longitudinal study of vulnerability in the Cinque Terre will ensure that the current rebuilding efforts will not be once again destroyed by a future disaster. Tourism development can progress in a more sustainable way to preserve the cultural and natural values of the landscape. Future study can further develop the theoretical framework that may be applied to other UNESCO World Heritage Sites worldwide.
61
REFERENCES
Associazione Culturale Cinque Terre. (2009). Vernazza Cinque Terre; history and places to visit, wines, typical food, restaurants and lodging. Comune di Vernazza: Associazione Culturale Cinque Terre.
Battilani, P. (2010). The “Bel Paese” and the transition to a service economy. Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 15(1), 21-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13545710903465515
Brancucci, G., Paliaga, G. (2006) The hazard assessment in a terraced landscape: preliminary result of the Liguria (Italy) case study in the Interreg III Alpter Project, 2006 ECI Conference on Geohazards. Lillehammer, Norway. Retrieved from http://services.bepress.com/eci/geohazards/16
Calgaro, E. & Lloyd, K. (2008). Sun, sea, sand and tsunami: examining disaster vulnerability In the tourism community of Khao Lak, Thailand. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 29 (3), 288-306. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467- 9493.2008.00335.x
Castillo, A. (2012). Introduction. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage: Archeology 29-35. Minorca, Spain.
Cinque Terre National Park (2013). Park authority. Retrieved from http://www.parconazionale5terre.it/piano-del-parco.asp?id_lingue=1&menu=1
Comer, D.C. (2012). The World Heritage Convention and World Heritage List in historic context: denied responsibilities and the destruction of archaeological heritage. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage: Archeology 511-520. Minorca, Spain.
Gatti, F., & Fornelli, F., (2006). L’Ente Parco Cinque Terre. In F. Gatti & F.R. Puggelli (Ed.), Nouve frontier del turismo (pp 102-119). Milan, Italy: Hoepli.
Jimura, T. (2011). The impact of world heritage site designation on local communities – A case study of Ogimachi, Shirakawa-mura, Japan. Tourism Management, 32, 288-296. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.02.005
Malanima, P. & Zamagni, V. (2010). 150 years of the Italian economy, 1861-2010. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 15(1), 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13545710903465507
Paul, B.K. (2011). Environmental Hazards and Disasters: Contexts, Perspectives and Management. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
62
Pedersen, A. (2002). Managing Tourism at World Heritage Sites: A Practical Manual for World Heritage Site Managers. Paris, France: UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved from http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/activities/documents/activity-113- 2.pdf
Petit, C., Konold, W., & Hochtl F. (2012). Historic terraced vineyards: impressive witnesses of vernacular architecture. Landscape History, 33 (1), 5-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01433768.2012.671029
Povoledo, E. (2012, January 3). In Liguira’s coastal hills, a storm’s fury brings a struggle for restoration. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/world/europe/villages-of-cinque-terre- struggle-to-rebuild-after-storm.html?_r=0
Save Vernazza ONLUS. (2012). History of Vernazza. Vernazza, Italy: Save Vernazza ONLUS
World Heritage Center (2006). Italy: Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto). State of Conservation of World Heritage Properties in Europe Section II. Retrieved from http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/826/documents/
Turner, B.L., Kasperson R.E., Matson, P.A. et al. (2003). A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 100 (4), 8074-079. Available at http://www.pnas.org/content/100/14/8074.full
Williems, W.J.H. (2012). World Heritage and global heritage: the tip of the iceberg. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage: Archeology 36-50. Minorca, Spain.
63
APPENDIX A VISITOR SURVEY
How many nights do you intend to stay in Cinque Terre? □ 0 (day visitor) □ 1-3 □ 4-7 □ 8-28 □ 29-91 □ 92-365
Is this your first visit? □ Yes □ No
Are you in an all-inclusive tour? □ Yes □ No
Which of the following, if any, influenced your decision to visit the Cinque Terre? □ A previous visit □Word of mouth □Tourist Information Center □Tourist guidebooks (which book?)______□TV program (where?)______□Radio/podcast (where?)______□Other ______
Did you know about the flood before your visit? □ Yes □ No
During your stay at the Cinque Terre, which of the following activities did you engage in?
□Hiking Trail #2 □Hiking Trails other than Trail #2 □Wine Tasting □Visiting a Sanctuary □Swimming □None of these □Other (Please specify) ______
Are there any specific ways in which we could improve the site to make your visit more enjoyable?
______
______
What would you say was the most enjoyable part of your visit to the Cinque Terre? ______
______
And what have you enjoyed least?
______
______
How likely are you to come back to the site in the future? □Very likely □ Likely □Unlikely □Very unlikely □Don’t know
How likely are you to recommend the Cinque Terre? □Very likely □ Likely □Unlikely □Very unlikely □Don’t know
What is your age range? □15-24 □25-34 □35-44 □45-54 □55-64 □ ≥65
Where are you from?______
64
APPENDIX B WORDLE VISUAL
The size of each word represents the frequency that this word was used. The left word cluster shows common words used by the residents. The right word cluster shows common words used by the visitors.
65